Sweden pledged on Wednesday to send fearsome Archer artillery guns to Ukraine “as soon as possible” but also warned that future military aid would have to be balanced against its own defense needs as a possible future member of the NATO military alliance.
During a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the Archer howitzers, as well as the 51 infantry fighting vehicles and anti-tank weapons Sweden promised, together “will make a significant contribution to the combat power of Ukraine”.
The latest promised package of Swedish military aid comes as Ukraine fiercely holds on to territory in the country’s east against further Russian attacks. Ukraine is counting on continued Western military aid to repel Russian advances and launch its own offensives.
The truck-mounted Archer is a so-called “shoot and slide” weapon, capable of rapidly firing a succession of three rounds and being on the move again before the first shell reaches its target.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this week that Ukraine’s Western suppliers are “in a logistical race” to prevent Russia from seizing the battlefield initiative.
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The Archer guns will join other Western-supplied equipment that has helped tip artillery clashes in Ukraine’s favor, along with French-made Caesar howitzers, US-supplied HIMARS and other precision strike systems.
Kristersson, speaking at a news conference in Kiev with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, did not say exactly when his country’s Archer guns would arrive, citing security needs and “practical reasons as well, in terms of training and things like that.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, right, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak during a meeting in kyiv, Ukraine, on February 15, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
But he said training would start “very soon” and promised deliveries from Archer “as soon as possible.”
Zelenskyy described the Archer as “one of the best artillery pieces” and predicted that it would shock the Russian invasion forces on the battlefield.
“The stronger Ukraine is now, the sooner the Russian aggression will end,” he said.
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Kristersson was less emphatic about another weapon system on kyiv’s wish list: fighter jets.
He did not rule out such support. But he suggested that Sweden would not want to go it alone as a potential supplier and that other nations would have to jump on board with the idea of aircraft deliveries, as they eventually did with the shipment of standard NATO tanks to Ukraine.
“We are not excluding anything at the moment, this is not the time to be excluding anything,” the Swedish prime minister said. “But at the same time we also recognize the fact that we need an international coalition to take further steps. That’s pretty obvious.”
Kristersson said Sweden’s push to join NATO, along with candidate nation Finland, will also influence his thinking on military supplies to Ukraine.
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Being a candidate for NATO membership “puts us in a very special situation right now. We have very obvious reasons to be very careful about our own defense right now.” he said.
“We will do everything we can to support Ukraine and we will do it in a way that does not risk or jeopardize Sweden’s ability to defend itself, because that is a core competence that a NATO candidate country must defend,” the prime minister said. said the minister.
